The Anti-Corruption book club is here!

Hi Everyone,

I hope you had a good weekend. I spent Sunday in Brooklyn doing two of my favorite things. Going to brunch at Mile End and shopping for books at Books Are Magic. Mile End is a Montreal-style restaurant where the food and vibes are both fantastic. I love to get the cottage cheese pancakes and the smoked salmon with latkes. I love Canada and they are being bullied right now and it breaks my heart. If I was running for mayor or in any race in NYC I would stop by Mile End and share a pic and post that you stand with Canada.

Because of the times, I am launching an anti-corruption book club. I am not here to just call out corruption I am here to read and learn and hopefully inspire you to do the same. There is so much going on around us and it is blatant. We need to read and hopefully get people on all sides reading.

My first pick is Red Notice: A True Story of High Finance, Murder, and One Man’s Fight For Justice by Bill Browder. This book is fantastic and reads like a caper. Bill Browder is a businessman who did not set out to become a public figure. He started doing business in Russia and originally was making money but then saw how rotten everything was. One day on a routine flight to Moscow he discovered his visa was revoked because he was a threat to the country. So started the spiral that led to the tragic death of Sergei Magnitsky. Sergei was a brilliant tax lawyer who believed in the law. He discovered that Russian Interior Ministry officers had stolen the investment companies of his client and then went on to rob the Russian Treasury. Sergei stood up and testified and was then arrested and murdered in jail. Sergei did not set out to be a public figure he was just standing up for what was right. Bill Browder had the Magnitsky Act passed - which sanctioned human rights offenders including those responsible for the death of Magnitsky, as well as acts of corruption - and continues to fight for justice. There is a paragraph in the end of the book that epitomizes why books like this are so important.

More soon,

Jordana